EQUITIES
Foreigners sell NT$50.3bn
Foreign investors last week sold a net NT$50.3 billion (US$1.57 billion) of local shares after buying a net NT$5.01 billion a week earlier, the Taiwan Stock Exchange said in a statement yesterday. As of Friday, foreign investors had sold NT$1.29 trillion of local shares since the beginning of the year, it said. The top three shares bought by foreign investors last week were Innolux Corp (群創), United Microelectronics Corp (聯電) and AUO Corp (友達光電), while the top three shares sold by foreign investors were E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控), Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (台積電) and Cathay Financial Holding Co (國泰金控). As of Friday, the market capitalization of shares held by foreign investors was NT$16.13 trillion, or 39.41 percent of total market capitalization, it said.
EQUITIES
Exchange calls for buybacks
The Taiwan Stock Exchange yesterday encouraged listed companies to implement stock buyback programs to enhance investor confidence. The exchange also called on executives and board directors to increase holdings of their company’s shares to bolster market confidence. It said that listed companies should consider their cash flow management to protect corporate credibility and shareholders’ interest in buyback programs. From Jan. 1 to Friday last week, listed companies executed 53 buyback programs, 46 of which were expired, completed or ceased to implement, it said. Listed firms are expected to pour in NT$1.52 billion to repurchase their shares through the remaining seven programs, it said.
LABOR
Furlough numbers increase
The number of the nation’s furloughed workers grew by 1,719 from the previous week to 15,050 last week, with most of them from small tourism agencies and the manufacturing sector, the Ministry of Labor said yesterday. Department of Labor Standards and Equal Employment Deputy Director Wang Chin-jung (王金蓉) said the highest number of furloughed workers, 1,195, were from small travel agencies which have yet to benefit from the reopening of the border on Thursday. Of the 208 furloughed workers in the manufacturing sector, about 100 were from a machine tool maker due to a decline in orders, Wang said. Eighty-eight workers on unpaid leave were from retail and wholesale businesses, while 85 and 81 were from the transportation/logistics and hotel/restaurant industries respectively, she said.
SEMICONDUCTORS
ISTI posts record profit
Chip inspecting services provider Integrated Service Technology Inc (ISTI, 宜特科技) yesterday said it expects geopolitical tensions and reduced production from customers would not affect its business as it reported record-high pretax profit for the third quarter. It said that pretax profit grew 162 percent year-on-year to NT$167 million last quarter, the highest for the same period on record. That translated into pretax earnings per share of NT$2.28. Consolidate revenue totaled NT$975 million last quarter, also a record high, with gross margin reaching 31.1 percent. Strong demand for verification and analysis of automotive chips, advanced processes, advanced packaging and compound semiconductors last quarter, as well as contributions from subsidiaries and affiliates, contributed to revenue and pretax profit, it said. In the first three quarters, pretax profit totaled NT$371 million, up 126 percent year-on-year, with pretax earnings per share of NT$5, it said.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday said that its investment plan in Arizona is going according to schedule, following a local media report claiming that the company is planning to break ground on its third wafer fab in the US in June. In a statement, TSMC said it does not comment on market speculation, but that its investments in Arizona are proceeding well. TSMC is investing more than US$65 billion in Arizona to build three advanced wafer fabs. The first one has started production using the 4-nanometer (nm) process, while the second one would start mass production using the
‘SILVER LINING’: Although the news caused TSMC to fall on the local market, an analyst said that as tariffs are not set to go into effect until April, there is still time for negotiations US President Donald Trump on Tuesday said that he would likely impose tariffs on semiconductor, automobile and pharmaceutical imports of about 25 percent, with an announcement coming as soon as April 2 in a move that would represent a dramatic widening of the US leader’s trade war. “I probably will tell you that on April 2, but it’ll be in the neighborhood of 25 percent,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago club when asked about his plan for auto tariffs. Asked about similar levies on pharmaceutical drugs and semiconductors, the president said that “it’ll be 25 percent and higher, and it’ll
CHIP BOOM: Revenue for the semiconductor industry is set to reach US$1 trillion by 2032, opening up opportunities for the chip pacakging and testing company, it said ASE Technology Holding Co (日月光投控), the world’s largest provider of outsourced semiconductor assembly and test (OSAT) services, yesterday launched a new advanced manufacturing facility in Penang, Malaysia, aiming to meet growing demand for emerging technologies such as generative artificial intelligence (AI) applications. The US$300 million facility is a critical step in expanding ASE’s global footprint, offering an alternative for customers from the US, Europe, Japan, South Korea and China to assemble and test chips outside of Taiwan amid efforts to diversify supply chains. The plant, the company’s fifth in Malaysia, is part of a strategic expansion plan that would more than triple
Taiwanese artificial intelligence (AI) server makers are expected to make major investments in Texas in May after US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office and amid his rising tariff threats, Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association (TEEMA, 台灣電子電機公會) chairman Richard Lee (李詩欽) said yesterday. The association led a delegation of seven AI server manufacturers to Washington, as well as the US states of California, Texas and New Mexico, to discuss land and tax issues, as Taiwanese firms speed up their production plans in the US with many of them seeing Texas as their top option for investment, Lee said. The
RSS